that the phrase was unluckily chosen, and that it has not always been employed with perfect accuracy, either by Dr. Reid or his followers; but he maintains, that the greater part of the truths which Dr. Reid has referred to this authority, are in reality originally and unaccountably impressed on the human understanding, and are necessarily implied in the greater part of its operations. These, he says, may be better denominated, "Fundamental laws of belief;" and he exemplifies them by such propositions as the following: "I am the same person to-day that I was yesterday.-The material world has a real existence.-The future course of nature will resemble the past." We shall have occasion immediately to offer a few observations on some of these propositions.

:

With these observations Mr. Stewart concludes his defence of Dr. Reid's philosophy but we cannot help thinking that there was room for a farther vindication, and that some objections may be stated to the system in question, as formidable as any of those which Mr. Stewart has endeavoured to obviate. We shall allude very shortly to those that appear the most obvious and important. Dr. Reid's great achievement was undoubtedly the subversion of the ideal system, or the confutation of that hypothesis which represents the immediate objects of the mind in perception, as certain images or pictures of external objects conveyed by the senses to the sensorium. This part of his task, it is now generally admitted, that he has performed with exemplary diligence and complete success: but we are by no means so entirely satisfied with the uses he has attempted to make of his victory. After considering the subject with some attention, we must confess that we have not been able to perceive how the destruction of the ideal theory can be held as a demonstration of the real existence of matter, or a confutation of all those reasonings which have brought into question the popular faith upon this subject. The theory of images and pictures, in fact, was in its original state more closely connected with the supposition of a real material prototype, than the theory of direct perception; and the sceptical doubts that have since been suggested appear to us to be by no means exclusively applicable to the former hypothesis. He who believes that certain forms or images are actually transmitted through the organs of sense to the mind, must be-lieve, at least, in the reality of the organs and the images, and probably in their origin from real external existences. He who is contented with stating that he is conscious of certain sensations and perceptions, by no means assumes the independent existence of matter, and gives a safer account of the phenomena than the idealist.

Dr. Reid's sole argument for the real existence of a material world, is founded on the irresistible belief of it that is implied in perception and memory; a belief, the foundations of which he seems to think it would be something more than absurd to call in question. Now, the reality of this general persuasion or belief no one ever attempted to deny. The question is only about its justness or truth. It is conceivable, certainly, in every case, that our belief should be erroneous; and there can be nothing absurd in suggesting reasons for doubting of its conformity with truth. The obstinacy of our belief in this instance, and its constant recurrence, even after all our endeavours to familiarise ourselves with the objections that have been made to it, are not absolutely without parallel in the history of the human faculties. All children believe that the earth is at rest, and that the sun and the fixed stars perform a diurnal revolution round it. They also believe that the place which they occupy on the surface is absolutely the uppermost, and

that the inhabitants of the opposite surface must be suspended in an inverted position. Now, of this universal, practical, and irresistible belief, all persons of education are easily disabused in speculation, though it influences their ordinary language, and continues, in fact, to be the habitual impression of their minds. In the same way, a Berkleian might admit the constant recurrence of the illusions of sense, although his speculative reason were sufficiently convinced of their fallacy.

The phenomena of dreaming and of delirium, however, appear to afford a sort of experimentum crucis to demonstrate that a real external existence is not necessary to produce sensation and perception in the human mind. Is it utterly absurd and ridiculous to maintain, that all the objects of our thoughts may be "such stuff as dreams are made of?" or that the uniformity of Nature gives us some reason to presume, that the perceptions of maniacs and of rational men are manufactured, like their organs, out of the same materials? There is a species of insanity known among medical men by the epithet notional, in which there is frequently no general depravation of the reasoning and judging faculties, but where the disease consists entirely in the patient mistaking the objects of his thought or imagination for real and present existences. The error of his perceptions, in such a case, is only detected by comparing them with the perceptions of other people; and it is evident that he has just the same reason to impute error to them, as they can have individually for imputing it to him. The majority, indeed, necessarily carries the point as to all practical consequences; but is there any absurdity in alleging that we have no internal, infallible, and necessary assurance of that in which the internal conviction of an individual must be supported, and may be overruled by the testimony of his fellow-creatures?

Dr. Reid has himself admitted, that "we might probably have been so made, as to have all the perceptions and sensations which we now have, without any impression on our bodily organs at all." It is surely altogether as reasonable to say that we might have had all those perceptions, without the aid or intervention of any material existence at all. Those perceptions might still have been accompanied with a belief, too, that would not have been less universal or irresistible for being utterly without a foundation in reality. In short, our perceptions can never afford any complete or irrefragable proof of the real existence of external things; because it is easy to conceive that we might have such perceptions without them. We do not know, therefore, with certainty, that our perceptions are ever produced by external objects; and in the cases to which we have just alluded, we find perception and its concomitant belief, where we do know with certainty that it is not produced by any external existence.

It has been said, however, that we have the same evidence for the existence of the material world as for that of our own thoughts or conceptions; as we have no reason for believing in the latter, but that we cannot help it; which is equally true of the former. Now, this appears to us to be very inaccurately argued. Whatever we doubt, and whatever we prove, we must plainly begin with consciousness: that alone is certain-all the rest is inference. Does Dr. Reid mean to assert, that our perception of external objects is not a necessary preliminary to any proof of their reality, or that our belief in their reality is not founded upon our consciousness of perceiving them? Our perceptions, then, and not the existence of their objects, is what we cannot help believing; and it would be nearly as reasonable to say that we must take all our dreams for realities, because we cannot

doubt that we dream, as it is to assert that we have the same evidence for the existence of an external world, as for the existence of the sensations by which it is suggested to our minds.

We dare not venture farther into this subject; yet we cannot abandon it without observing, that the question is entirely a matter of philosophical and abstract speculation; and that by far the most reprehensible passages in Dr. Reid's writings, are those in which he has represented it as otherwise. When we consider, indeed, the exemplary candour, and temper, and modesty, with which this excellent man has conducted the whole of his speculations, we cannot help wondering that he should ever have forgotten himself so far as to descend to the vulgar raillery which he has addressed, instead of argument, to the abettors of the Berkleian hypothesis. The old joke, of the sceptical philosophers running their noses against posts, tumbling into kennels, and being sent to a madhouse, is repeated at least ten times in different parts of Dr. Reid's publications, and really seems to have been considered as an objection not less forcible than facetious. Yet Dr. Reid surely could not be ignorant, that those who have questioned the reality of a material universe, never affected to have perceptions, ideas, and sensations of a different nature from other people. The debate was merely about the origin of these sensations, and could not possibly affect the conduct or feelings of the individual. The sceptic, therefore, who has been taught by experience that certain perceptions are connected with unpleasant sensations, will avoid the occasions of them as carefully as those who look upon the objects of their perceptions as external realities. Notions and sensations he cannot deny to exist; and this limited faith will regulate his conduct exactly in the same manner as the more extensive creed of his antagonists. We are persuaded that Mr. Stewart would reject the aid of such an argument for the existence of an external world.

The unexpected length to which these observations have extended, deters us from prosecuting any farther our remarks on Dr. Reid's philosophy. The other points in which it appears to us that he has left his system vulnerable, are, his explanation of our idea of cause and effect, and his speculations on the question of liberty and necessity. In the former, we cannot help thinking that he has dogmatised, with a degree of confidence which is scarcely justified by the cogency of his arguments, and has endeavoured to draw ridicule on the reasoning of his antagonists, by illustrations that are utterly inapplicable. In the latter, he has made something more than a just use of the prejudices of men and the ambiguity of language, and has more than once been guilty, if we be not mistaken, of what, in a less respectable author, we should not have scrupled to call the most palpable sophistry. We are glad that our duty does not require us to enter into the discussion of this very perplexing controversy; though we may be permitted to remark, that it is somewhat extraordinary to find the dependence of human actions on motives so positively denied by those very philosophers with whom the doctrine of causation is of such high authority.

PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS. BY DUGALD STEWART.*

Mind, not the proper subject of Experiment, but of Observation.-Effects of the Cultivation of Modern Physics, and of the Philosophy of Mind contrasted.

In the second part of the Preliminary Dissertation, we will confess that we take a lively interest; as Mr. Stewart has there taken occasion to make a formal reply so some of our hasty speculations, and has done us the honour of embodying several of our transitory pages in this enduring volume. If we were at liberty to yield to the common weaknesses of authors, we should probably be tempted to defend ourselves in a long dissertation; but we know too well what is due to our readers and to the public, to think of engaging any considerable share of their attention with a controversy which may be considered in some measure as personal to ourselves; and therefore, however, honourable we think it, to be thus singled out for equal combat by such an antagonist, we shall put what we have to say within a very narrow compass.

The observations to which Mr. Stewart has here condescended to reply occur in an early Number of our publication,† and were intended to show, that as mind was not the proper subject of experiment, but of observation, so there could be no very close analogy between the rules of metaphysical investigation, and the most approved methods of enquiry as to those physical substances which are subjected to our disposal and control;-that as all the facts with regard to mind must be derived from previous and universal consciousness, it was difficult to see how any arrangement of them could add to our substantial knowledge; and that there was, therefore, no reason either to expect discoveries in this branch of science, or to look to it for any real augmentation of our power. The argument upon this head was summed up in the following passage, which Mr. Stewart has not thought it necessary to quote in the Dissertation before us, though it was certainly intended to contain that ultimate view of the subject, by which we were most willing to abide, and most desirous to be tried.

"For these reasons, we cannot help thinking that the labours of the metaphysician, instead of being assimilated to those of the chemist or experimental philosopher, might, with less impropriety, be compared to those of the Grammarian, who arranges into technical order the words of a language which is spoken familiarly by all his readers; or of the Geographer, who exhibits to them a correct map of a district, with every part of which they were previously acquainted. We acquire a perfect knowledge of our own minds without study or exertion, just as we acquire a perfect knowledge of our native language or our native parish; yet we cannot, without much study and reflection, compose a grammar of the one, or a map of the other. To arrange in correct order all the particulars of our practical knowledge, and to set down, without omission and without distortion, every thing that we actually know upon a subject, requires a power of abstraction, recollection, and disposition, that falls to the lot of but few. In the science of mind, perhaps, more of those qualities are required than in any other; but it is not the less true of this than of all the rest, that the materials of the description must always be derived from a previous acquaintance with the subject,—that nothing can be set down technically that was not practically known,-and that no substantial addition is made to our knowledge by a scientific distribution of its particulars. After such a systematic arrangement has been introduced and a correct nomenclature applied, we may indeed conceive more clearly, and will certainly describe more justly, the nature and extent of our information; but our information itself is not really increased; and the consciousness by which we are

* Vol. xvii. page 173. November, 1810.

t See an able review of Stewart's Life of Reid, vol. iii. page 269, &c. That the reader may clearly understand the nature of the controversy between the Edinburgh Review and the distinguished author of the Philosophical Essays, he should peruse the whole of the second chapter of the Preliminary Dissertation to that work, page 26, &c., which was intended as a reply to the observations of the critic in his strictures upon Reid's Philosophy.

supplied with all the materials of our reflections, does not become more productive by this disposition of its contributions.

With regard to perception and the other primary functions of mind, it was added, that this doctrine seemed to hold without any limitation; and as to the associating principle while it was admitted that the case was somewhat different, it was observed, that all men were in reality aware of its existence, and acted upon it in all practical cases, though they might never have made its laws a subject of reflection, nor ever stated its general phenomena in the form of an abstract proposition.

To all this Mr. Stewart proceeds to answer, by observing that the distinction between experiment and observation is really of no importance whatever, in reference to this argument; because experiments are merely phenomena that are observed; and the inferences and generalisations that are deduced from the observation of spontaneous phenomena, are just of the same sort with those that are inferred from experiment, and afford equally certain grounds of conclusion, provided they be sufficiently numerous and consistent. The justice of the last general proposition we do not mean to dispute; and assuredly if any thing inconsistent with it is to be found in our former speculations, it must have arisen from that haste and inadvertence which, we make no doubt, have often betrayed us into still greater errors. But it is very far from following from this, that there is not a very material difference between experiment and observation; or that the philosophy of mind is not necessarily restrained within very narrow limits, in consequence of that distinction. Substances which are in our power are the objects of experiment; those which are not in our power, of observation only. With regard to the former it is obvious, that, by well-contrived experiments, we may discover many things that could never be disclosed by any length of observation. With regard to the latter, an attentive observer may, indeed, see more in them than strikes the eye of a careless spectator; but he can see nothing that may not be seen by every body; and in cases where the appearances are very few, or very interesting, the chance is, that he does see nothing more, and that all that is left to philosophy is, to distinguish them into classes, and to fit them with appropriate appellations. Now, mind, we humbly conceive, considered as a subject of investigation, is the subject of observation only; and is known nearly as well by all men, as by those who have most diligently studied its phenomena. "We cannot decompose our sensations," we formerly observed, “in a crucible, nor divide our opinions with a prism." The metaphor was something violent; but the meaning obviously was, that we cannot subject those faculties to any analogous process, nor discover more of their nature than consciousness has taught all the beings who possess them. Is it a satisfactory answer, then, for Mr. Stewart to say, that we may analyse them by reflection and attention, and other instruments better suited than prisms or crucibles to the intellectual laboratory which furnishes their materials? Our reply is, that we cannot analyse them at all; and can never know more of them than has always been known to all to whom they had been imparted; and that for this plain reason, that the truth of every thing that is said with regard to the mind can be determined by an appeal to consciousness alone, and would not be even intelligible, if it informed men of any thing that they did not previously feel to be true.

With regard to the actual experiments to which Mr. Stewart alludes as having helped to explain the means by which the eye judges of distances